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This sums up the scene today in terms of misinformation....

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This sums up the scene today in terms of misinformation....

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Today is a long newsletter, and it involves a conversation with the man who started a rumour / conspiracy theory that spun out of control over the weekend here in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

My colleague Dylan Reeve tracked him down, and called him. The man had been half expecting a call:

" I have been in this fight-or-flight mode for the last 48 hours. I just realised how bad it was on Saturday, which is when I went in and tried to clean up as much as I could, but by then it's got a life of its own. "

It's my hope that in talking with Patient Zero of a conspiracy theory, we can understand a little more how they spread, and the victims they leave in their wake.

David Farrier and Dylan Reeve.
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The backstory:

On August 15, Health Minister Chris Hipkins urged New Zealanders to stop spreading harmful conspiracy theories about COVID-19.

Hipkins was referring to a post that had gone viral on Facebook, alleging the virus' resurgence in New Zealand was due to a young woman infiltrating a quarantine facility.

That post was deeply vitriolic, racist and untrue.

But that racist post doesn't seem to have been the origin of the rumour.

Before that did the rounds, a Reddit user had posted a breakdown that all the other rumours and conspiracy theories seemed to have sprung from.

It looked like this was Patient Zero.

The Reddit post was deleted a few hours after it appeared, but the damage had already been done.

That bullet-point list looked like the basis for the racist post that followed: the one we all saw shared by that uncle we hate, that friend we thought was OK, and that chat group we can no longer post in.

It was awful.

Dylan Reeve, the friend I made with back in 2016, tracked down the guy who wrote that early Reddit comment.

And he called him.

That conversation is below, but I want to hand it over to Dylan to explain how he found him.

A note from Dylan Reeve:

By the time I started looking into the racist conspiracy theory flying around Facebook about the source of Auckland's resurgence of community transmission, many were already making the link to a Reddit comment from a little earlier.

The comment was different in tone, but the basic hypotheses seemed to be the same.

It seemed likely to be the proto-theory.

So a few days later, when I was still thinking about this theory that briefly flooded social media, I decided to see if I could find the origin. I wanted to know if this was some troll trying to win imaginary internet points, or if there was something else happening.

It didn't take me long. While he'd deleted his Reddit account and locked down various public-facing pages by the time I started looking, it still only took me about 15 minutes to be 90% sure I knew who it was.

I couldn't find his phone number, but I found someone close to him and asked them to tell him to get back to me. And then I waited.

What I knew at that point was that he didn't have a huge online profile, but he was pretty clearly a young professional with a decent career and, it seemed, a lot to lose.

This sort of online research and tracking people down online is something I do quite often - I have dozens of folders on my computer with background research of various internet characters.

But with most I never do anything. I certainly don't call them.
Note: We have chosen to change the real name of the Reddit user in this post. Ultimately the point of the conversation became understanding how a conspiracy theory can start, how quickly it can spread, take on new meaning and how quickly you can lose control of what you put out in the world. I do not want this to be the basis of a mob or a doxing.
I had no specific plan about what I was going to do with this call - maybe I was just calling to have a fight?

I didn't know if I was about to speak to some racist troll who was intent on sowing mayhem, or some overwhelmed dude who'd let his enthusiasm for solving a mystery get the better of him.
My name is Dylan Reeve. Is this James?
A conversation with Patient Zero:
I'm a journalist and I am just tracking down something from Reddit.
Ah, hello. Who am I speaking with?
I am not trying to hang anyone out to dry, I am just curious to know... I assume you are [James' Reddit username]?
Yep.
Well there you go. I am just wondering where the origin of the post that you made was, for you, and what you think about it and what went down.
Yeah, I got a feeling. I was waiting for this.

Well it was my public profile so, ah, yeah.

Well yeah. There was a flurry of chat....

So we got into lockdown on Tuesday night, and then there was a bunch of chat on the 12th, everyone was all over the place and a couple of mates had a discussion.

There was some talk from a friend from Auckland Uni, and some other people had mentioned to me as well, related around somebody sneaking into a managed isolation.
Yeah, I saw the original post, but by then there were screenshots of it...
So it was basically - I made a poor decision to put that in writing on Reddit.

I realised a couple of hours later and removed it as much as I could, and by that stage it had been used in screen shots.
[Editor's note: James is a little rambly, I think he is still a little shocked he is on the phone talking about this] That is what I was wondering, I didn't think you wrote that.
Yeah and so then, whether the chat was originally screen-shotted from there, or that was basically the discussion I had had earlier that morning...
So that is what I was getting to. You were free associating some ideas in that comment. Some things you'd heard.
So whether they took - what I saw later on, and I tried to shut it off, was the descriptions around criminal activity and race and stuff...

Absolutely, and that is why I have been quite basically horrified where it went, and if I had not put that in writing, if it had stayed... I wonder if it would have happened organically. I don't know.

Well, I, um, that was the theory I was explained to me.

And then I... at the time it was like, a few hours later, " this is actually not good ".

But it was kind of like, it seemed legitimate. I've had friends in the army isolation saying it was mickey mouse, and I didn't question it too much. Like everyone, I was scrambling for answers. So it was the wrong decision to write it there.
Well people speculate on the internet all the time.
I thought a journalist might contact me. You are the first one.

And I am also wondering if later on, after I deleted the post, I was wondering about the 2015 Harmful Digital Communications Act. So I am half expecting to see if I am able to get called up there...

That's the thing, I don't know - it has taken you a couple of hours to track me down. And the other thing was, it was not an anonymous account, it wasn't a throwaway account.
What I was mainly interested in is how it came to be expressed by you. Was it just some chat amongst people you know, who all had little bits of something?
I have been using it for nine years.

There are like these hitman account created on the day, and people post stuff...

Yeah, bits and pieces. Army isolation. I think the girl actually was - which I shouldn't have mentioned those details - she was at Auckland Uni a while back and yeah, it was probably the dumbest thing I have ever done, actually.

And seeing what happened, and whether that came from me articulating that, or whether someone had articulated that same thing but put their own spin on it...
It is a small country, and it's a rumour mill. So look, I work with my friend David Farrier and we are looking at writing something about this. I am not sure if you follow his work?
And as far as I can tell, it all emerged around that same morning, nobody knew what was going on.
I don't want to hang you out to dry.
And there was chat around the office as well, mentioning the isolation facility, and that was in the comment, and I felt like I had a second source that had confirmed the story, when I wrote that theory down.

Yeah, I am a big fan of going down the rabbit hole, but here we are anyway.
We all like to connect the dots here and there and figure out what we see and what is happening. It's what we do. It's how our brains work. What happened after that was this Facebook page "Expose Hatred" picked it up... a page which spread hatred.
To be honest I may be hung out to dry, and it may be fully justified for the police to put me up under the Act.

And I will take the consequences, because honestly it's one of the worst things I've ever done, articulating that.

Yeah, I have seen David writing about that, and the QAnon stuff, and that is why I was like " man, this is next level fucked up now."
It's an echo chamber in a way. And you've been there nine years so you will have seen the chaos around the Boston Bombing on Reddit, and yes, it gets carried away. And we can all fall victim to that. I think what you have done is made a poor judgement in summing it all up and putting it together in a way that you did.
And I have been in that r/NZ now for nine years now and I have seen the speculation around the Grace Millane thing, and we kinda get carried away, and articulating that sort of thing, and theories. And it's like, it's not good.

I have deleted my other accounts and I don't want to go anywhere near Reddit. And the thing is it's like if you've been on there long enough, you kind of see and then you step too far like that and you go " shit. "
Your identity isn't super important for this story, but I do want to write about how our comments can blow out in ways we can't understand.
I mean the government made a fucking announcement on this thing!

It was huge.

I don't expect this is the last call I will get about this.
And your Instagram is private, yep.
I have been waiting for the last two days.

Not sleeping because I am like, I have hibernated my LinkedIn...

I am like, I work as a consultant so there is a lot of stuff Google-ble by my name.

And if the cops want to take me in, they will find me, and they are probably already asking the Government, " what are we going to do about this? "

So I, yep, that is what I realise: it's why I have been in this fight-or-flight mode for the last 48 hours.
Your post has formed the storyline, the outline that someone else built this other story around later with the Department of Corrections, which is nonsensical. At no point would Corrections be involved in tracking anyone down.
I just realised how bad it was on Saturday, which is when I went in and tried to clean up as much as I could, but by then it's got a life of its own.

And because when I wrote about it, it was one of the earliest times it appeared, that theory was put together.
The main problem is this other Facebook post that went crazy viral.
My work is applying for International Development aid and stuff, so if my name gets near these articles, essentially I won't work in the consulting industry again and... and so to be honest, after this whatever happens in the next week or two, I might have to go and work on my parent's farm for the rest of my life, or become a carpenter under some random name.

Honestly Dylan, I am staring down the barrel of that.

I was in my extended family's cousin's chat group that I have on Facebook!

And then this post - that screen-grab, that image of what I'd posted - was forwarded into the chat by my father's mother.

And that was on Saturday, and I was like " oh my god this is going absolutely insane. "

So it came full circle from my boomer auntie. And yeah, um, yeah so like, I kind of....

I read some of Toby Manhire's writing on how this rumour is vile and malicious, and it is.

And it's inexcusable. And what I did was inexcusable.

And this is what I struggle with, and maybe if I was to get in front of a court with name suppression I could maybe get diversion, and I could pay the family some reparation and I would absolutely do that because it makes more sense for me to, if it was to go there, to just plead guilty, not pay a bunch of lawyer fees, and just pay as much as I could afford for the distress of the family, just because of this baseless rumour.

I would prefer to do that, and at least I would be able to work again.

And in this industry... and that is how I saw my life going until I have had to reframe that in the last 48 hours.

That fuckin' subreddit, too - it's just gotten so... yeah.

Those alerts came through at 9am and 11am and it was scrambling, everyone is sitting up with nothing else better to do than get into a frenzy.

And it's an information vacuum, and that's what this is, right?
And they are reticent to put out anything they are not sure of. So you always end up with this vacuum. And journalists want answers, and they want scoops. And you have a government that doesn't want to say anything they are not completely sure of, and so people just fill in things. Like Winston Peters went on the radio and made his own fucking theory up. What you have done is what he did, but he is the fucking Deputy Prime Minister.
And I had never looked into it before, and I like reading, so you literally have a hand grenade being thrown into a vacuum here.

And obviously the government couldn't move fast enough to put a proper story out...
This is the whole cancel culture idea. It's great people face accountability for things, but it's the scale. Sometimes it's out of proportion.
It literally took me three minutes to write, and I completely end my career and my public facing career in a three minute Reddit post that I left online for - it might have been a few hours.
Yes, about the "Exposing Hatred" post that was going mega viral. They tackled that, because I got probably four or five copies of that sent to me personally, I saw it posted on actual friends' Facebook pages, people in real life I know and I thought were quite rational people shared it on Facebook. People would tell me it had been posted on by the Herald then deleted because the government had told them to take it down. It's like, I don't understand what is going on in people's brains. But that was that shit they were responding to, not the original Reddit post outlining those facts - or not facts it turns out - but without any of the vitriol and inflammatory stuff around it.
I think I deleted it before the end of the day.

This, yeah, the government made an announcement on this. It's so intense.

It was like coffee-room, first thing in the morning, this is what we've heard had happened in the flurry overnight.

And my other friend had also messaged saying he, and a friend up in Auckland who had said that was their side of it, and they matched up.

And that is why I put it down there, and it down there in a bullet pointed list, and people could see that and go " oh there was a guy in... "
You did a very good job of tying threads together. Unfortunately they weren't threads that needed to be connected.
So if there is an element of truth in the story, people believe it, right?

It was like I had perfected this message of self destruction without even realising it.

You have to catch your own amygdala hijack before you put it out. And I have been posting drivel and pushing send on that Reddit website for nine years.

Mate, honestly...
Look, the idea of this piece is not to "out" you. That is not what this is about. It's about understanding.
That "Exposing Hatred" site would have gotten sent it straight away and gone " this is great ".

Look all [the information] would have been disjointed in people's Messenger that morning, and no-one had put it line by line in a public forum at that time, before lunch, and then yeah - I guess that is the earliest thing.

I would almost rather the police charge me, and I can do the proper reparations.

So just yeah, I guess, I can't really ask you to do anything.

So yeah, I put it in writing. It may be the last thing I do. We'll see.

You think you would see how your life is going Dylan, but....
Look, try and relax. At least this bit has happened now.
Look, am I better off going down the police station and just...?
Note: After the conversation James texted, ending with this this note:
I am probably too late because you are going to write this, but I am just thinking, would I be better off walking down there and just saying: " I put these words together last week... "

It's done now, I have to face the consequences now, thanks mate.

Note: If you want to support Webworm, you can become a paying member by entering your email below, and signing up for $6.99 a month, or $69.69 (USD) a year. Today's newsletter was free, because I think it's important that conversations around conspiracy theory culture go as widely as possible. With a membership, you will get more personal newsletters, behind-the-scenes material, monthly AMAs and the knowledge you're powering Webworm to do what it does. It will also allow you to take part in the very polite, smart comments section below, with other members and me. This month you can get 20% off a new membership.

Afterword from Dylan Reeve:

What was immediately apparent when I started talking to James was that he had a lot of pent up feelings - regret, fear, guilt. He was struggling.

He'd done what I think a lot of us do - heard some rumours and 'facts' from a few places and put them all together. It was like Gerry Brownlee making a list of things the Prime Minister and Ashley Bloomfield had been up to. But James just decided to post his thoughts on Reddit.

By the time he realised what he'd done, it was too late.

The story he'd put into the ether had taken on a life of its own, and then the basic plot points were remixed into something that was worse.

James couldn't put the genie back in the bottle, and now he was just waiting for the penny to drop and his life to fall apart.

It's fun to play what-if, but sometimes we don't think about the broader ideas and narratives our ideas might feed into. And once we put them out there, there might be no going back.

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Webworm talks to the man who started the COVID-19 outbreak rumour in New Zealand

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Today is a long newsletter, and it involves a conversation with the man who started a rumour / conspiracy theory that spun out of control over the weekend here in Aotearoa, New Zealand. My colleague Dylan Reeve tracked him down, and called him.

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Deep fake: Jacinda Ardern's words twisted in 'scary' audio clip

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Is the capital of NZ set to change to Auckland? Or is all not as it seems?

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Fake News Generator: Who starts viral misinformation?  - BBC News

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Why Do Conspiracy Theories Exist? Podcast

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Why Do Conspiracy Theories Exist? Podcast

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Listener Avalon from Australia wants to know why people use conspiracy theories to explain shocking events. Are we more likely to believe conspiracy theories during this pandemic?

Listener Avalon from Australia wants to know why people use conspiracy theories to explain shocking events. Are we more likely to believe conspiracy theories in times of adversity? What purpose do conspiracy theories serve in society?

Marnie Chesterton speaks to the scientists to explain their popularity, even in the face of seemingly irrefutable evidence.
Presented by Marnie Chesterton. Produced by Caroline Steel for the BBC World Service.

Image: All-seeing eye of God inside triangle pyramid. Credit: paseven, Getty Images

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BBC World Service - CrowdScience, Why do conspiracy theories exist?

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Listener Avalon from Australia wants to know why people use conspiracy theories to explain shocking events. Are we more likely to believe conspiracy theories during this pandemic? Listener Avalon from Australia wants to know why people use conspiracy theories to explain shocking events. Are we more likely to believe conspiracy theories in times of adversity?

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Example - Mis-information, Covid and Credibility

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Example - Mis-information, Covid and Credibility

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Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have taken down a video spreading false information about a coronavirus "cure" that was shared by President Trump. The clip was viewed millions of times before it was scrubbed from the social media platforms.

The video published by right-wing website Breitbart shows a news conference in front of the Supreme Court steps with South Carolina Republican Rep. Ralph Norman and several people claiming to be doctors who have worked with COVID-19 patients. Dr. Stella Immanuel, one member of the group calling itself "America's Frontline Doctors," said hydroxychloroquine, a drug that was touted by Mr. Trump, is a "cure" for coronavirus.

"This virus has a cure, it's called hydroxychloroquine, zinc, and Zithromax," she said. "You don't need masks, there is a cure."

Masks have been shown to be an effective way of reducing the transmission of the coronavirus, and as recently as last week, Mr. Trump encouraged people to wear them. Results published in early June showed hydroxychloroquine was no better than placebo pills at preventing illness from the coronavirus. The FDA also determined the drug is unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19. In an interview with "Good Morning America" on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, said that the drug is "not effective."

Regardless, Mr. Trump shared the video to 28 million users who have "liked" his page on Facebook and his 84 million followers on Twitter. Both platforms deleted the video.

"We've removed this video for sharing false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19," a Facebook company spokesperson told CBS News. Facebook also said, "People who reacted to, commented on, or shared this video, will see messages directing them to authoritative information about the virus."

The tweets were flagged and removed on Twitter. A spokesperson told CBS News that Mr. Trump's tweets were a "violation" of its COVID-19 misinformation policy.

A copy of the video was also uploaded to YouTube before that site took it down. "We have removed the video for violating our COVID-19 misinformation policies." a YouTube spokesperson told CBS News.

Mr. Trump also retweeted a podcast featuring former White House strategist Steve Bannon that claimed Fauci was misleading the American public on the drug. That tweet has not been taken down.

Asked about the disputed video at his White House briefing Tuesday, Mr. Trump said: "There was a group of doctors yesterday, a large group that were put on the internet, and for some reason the internet wanted to take them down. And took them off. I guess Twitter took them off, and I think Facebook took them off. I don't know why. I think they're very respected doctors. There was a woman who was spectacular in her statements about it and she's had tremendous success with it."

Another reporter pointed out, "The woman you said is a great doctor said masks don't work and there's a cure for COVID-19, both of which health experts say is not true. She's also made videos saying doctors make vaccines from DNA from aliens and that they're trying to create a vaccine to make you immune from becoming religious..."

The president replied, "I can tell you this - she was on air, along with many other doctors. They were big fans of hydroxychloroquine. And I thought she was very impressive in the sense that, from where she came, I don't know which country she comes from, but she said that she's had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients. And I thought her voice was an important voice. But I know nothing about her."

The president's son, Donald Trump Jr., also shared the fake cure video. His Twitter account was temporarily suspended.

"Tweets with the video are in violation of our COVID-19 misinformation policy," a Twitter spokesperson said.

Andy Surabian, a spokesman for Donald Trump Jr., responded, "Twitter suspending Don Jr. for sharing a viral video of medical professionals discussing their views on Hydroxychloroquine is further proof that Big Tech is intent on killing free expression online and is another instance of them committing election interference to stifle Republican voices."

Similar to the conspiracy documentary-style video, the clip has resurfaced on different websites and other social media platforms, illustrating the ongoing battle with misinformation.

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Facebook, Twitter and YouTube take down false coronavirus "cure" video shared by Trump

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Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have taken down a video spreading false information about a coronavirus "cure" that was shared by President Trump. The clip was viewed millions of times before it was scrubbed from the social media platforms. The video published by right-wing website Breitbart shows a news conference in front of the Supreme Court steps with South Carolina Republican Rep.

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Journalists Rate as One of the Least Trusted Figures in NZ society

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Journalists Rate as One of the Least Trusted Figures in NZ society

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Trust in politicians remains low, with only 22 percent of New Zealanders giving them the thumbs up in recent polls.

Research NZ managing partner Emanuel Kalafatelis said national and local body politicians had received low trust and confidence ratings over the past 10 to 15 years - and the latest survey showed they were still the least trusted group.

"It's the nature of the job, but at the same time we did elect them to represent us and represent our best interests, so it's a bit of a slap in the face when we rate our trust and confidence in them at only 22 percent," Kalafatelis said.

"Particularly given some of the things that have been happening in the lead-up to this year's general election, in terms of resignations and dismissals even, the idea of a code of conduct for parliamentarians may in fact be a good idea."

Only 35 percent of people surveyed had trust in people who work for the government.

People surveyed also had trouble trusting journalists, who came in as the third lowest ranked group of professionals. Confidence in the fourth estate was at just 23 percent.

That contrasts with 89 percent confidence in the fire and ambulance service and 65 percent confidence in teachers. Doctors, nurses and the police also scored well.

Lawyers ranked between the trusted and untrustworthy, with a 43 percent confidence rating.

Supermarket staff appear to be seen in a new light, after they soldiered on during the Covid-19 lockdown. They gained a trusted tick from 79 percent of those surveyed, with people saying supermarket staff had made a significant contribution to keeping coronavirus infection rates low.

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Politicians, journalists rated NZ's least trusted figures

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Trust in politicians remains low, with only 22 percent of New Zealanders giving them the thumbs up in recent polls. Research NZ managing partner Emanuel Kalafatelis said national and local body politicians had received low trust and confidence ratings over the past 10 to 15 years - and the latest survey showed they were still the least trusted group.

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This one weird trick will help you spot clickbait - Jeff Leek & Lucy McGowan

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Regulation and Coalition within Private  Platforms - Preemptive Measure to Preserve Democracy and Avoid Legislative Regulation

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Regulation and Coalition within Private  Platforms - Preemptive Measure to Preserve Democracy and Avoid Legislative Regulation

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Recent dev.

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SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook, Google and other major tech companies said on Wednesday that they were forming a coalition to promote discussions with government agencies to secure the November election.

The group, which is part of an effort to prevent the kind of online meddling and foreign interference that sullied the 2016 presidential election, plans to serve as a clearinghouse for data about disinformation campaigns. Among the other participants are Twitter and Microsoft, and the companies will meet with representatives from the F.B.I., the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security.

The coalition grew out of discussions that have occurred between the tech companies and the government agencies over the past four years. While some of the companies have made a practice of sharing leads about disinformation campaigns and other election threats, the efforts have been haphazard.

"In preparation for the upcoming election, we regularly meet to discuss trends with U.S. government agencies tasked with protecting the integrity of the election," a spokesman for the group said in a statement. "For the past several years, we have worked closely to counter information operations across our platforms."

The group formed from meetings that began between the tech companies and government agencies last fall. The companies have since taken action to ward off threats in elections around the world. Facebook, for instance, has monitored election behavior in Brazil, Mexico, Germany and France. Last year, the social network said it was strengthening how it verified which groups and people placed political advertising on its site.

On Wednesday, the group held another meeting with the agencies, updating one another on the behavior and illicit activities the companies were seeing on their platforms.

"We discussed preparations for the upcoming conventions and scenario planning related to election results," the group's spokesman said. "We will continue to stay vigilant on these issues and meet regularly ahead of the November election."

Beyond Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter, the group has expanded to involve LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, Verizon Media and the Wikimedia Foundation. The government participants also include the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Department of Justice's National Security Division.

Several social media companies have reported an increase in disinformation efforts as the election approaches. Last month, Twitter removed thousands of accounts that promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory. This week, NBC News reported that millions of QAnon conspiracy theory adherents were hidden in private groups and pages throughout Facebook.

The efficacy of the coalition remains unclear. While the group will discuss active threats, it is still the responsibility of each company to mitigate election interference on its platform.

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Google, Facebook and Others Form Tech Coalition to Secure U.S. Election

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SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook, Google and other major tech companies said on Wednesday that they were forming a coalition to promote discussions with government agencies to secure the November election. The group, which is part of an effort to prevent the kind of online meddling and foreign interference that sullied the 2016 presidential election, plans to serve as a clearinghouse for data about disinformation campaigns.

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Investigative Documentary - The Fake News Era

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Investigative Documentary - The Fake News Era

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfTUdOtRrwo&list=PUu0Uc1oNDF36jRY_sskl8bA&index=98

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Identifying "Fake" News | Common Sense Education | PBS LearningMedia

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What is "fake" news? How do we know it's false? Use these resources from Common Sense Education to help students investigate the way information is presented so that they can analyze what they read and see on the Web. This resource is part of the News and Media Literacy Collection.

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Experts have warned of the risks posed to New Zealand's Covid-19 response by online misinformation as a Kiwi influencer defends sharing conspiracy theories online.

Zoe Fuimaono, who once partnered with some of New Zealand's leading brands, is defending her right to share her beliefs online after posting misinformation criticising the Government's pandemic response.

Fuimaono, who has 64,000 followers and is known as Blessed In Doubles on Instagram, told her followers not to get tested if they don't want to and not to "buy into these draconian laws".

Fellow influencers were quick to criticise the comments in posts on social media, with one describing them as "utter crap" and a leading scientist telling the Herald that the comments risked our national fight against Covid-19.

In posts to Instagram after Auckland's move to alert level 3 was announced, Fuimaono said she had "called it", railed against what she described as Government "lies" and told her followers not to get tested if they didn't want to.

Zoe Fuimaono. Photo / Instagram

She also questioned the effectiveness of masks and said she would not be wearing one.

"Message your friends who are nurses and doctors and ask them what they think about the community wearing them," Fuimaono wrote.

"They will tell you they won't work because we won't use them properly because we aren't medical professionals!".

The Ministry of Health recommends the wearing of masks when in public under level 3 and the Government's official Covid-19 website offers instructions on the safe and effective wearing of masks.

The ministry also recommends that anyone who has cold and flu symptoms call a doctor and seek advice if they are outside Auckland and advises Aucklanders to get tested as soon as possible.

Microbiologist Dr Siouxsie Wiles, Associate Professor at the University of Auckland, told the Herald that misinformation could "undermine our collective response" to the virus.

"The virus is very real and what we've seen both here in New Zealand and overseas is that Covid-19 can have very serious consequences for many people, including those who are young and healthy," Wiles said.

"People should go to the official Covid-19 website for information," she added.

"It's really concerning that misinformation is being spread as it can dangerously undermine our collective response to the virus. We've shown that we can stop the virus if we work together.

"That means we need people to get tested if they have any symptoms. People in positions of leadership and influence should think long and hard about why they are trying to undermine our collective response to stamp out the virus. People's lives are at stake."

Fellow influencer Makaia Carr, whose account boasts more 50,000 followers, called out Fuimaono's stance, quoting her directly but not naming her.

"No ****head, you did not 'call it', everyone expected this (like actual experts, world trends and doctors said it, not you)," Carr wrote.

"Stop spreading utter crap, stick to what's important and what is factual. You are being totally irresponsible".

Fuimaono regularly features her husband Junior Fuimaono, a serving police officer, in her online content.

A source told the Herald they were not impressed with the comments given Fuimaono's frontline role - and were disappointed to see a police partner making such posts.

But police management would not comment, with a spokesperson telling the Herald: "Police will not be commenting on the opinions of members of the public, who are entitled to their own views."

Zoe and Junior Fuimaono post on Instagram. Photo / Instagram

Fuimaono has worked with some well-known New Zealand brands in the past, including Countdown.

That relationship ended last month after Fuimaono expressed opinions online that didn't match the supermarket chain's brand values.

"We've previously worked with Blessed in Doubles to create food content. We reached out to her last month in relation to opinions expressed on her page that weren't in line with any of our Countdown values. We stopped working together very shortly after," Countdown's head of communications Kate Porter told the Herald.

Porter said that Countdown would not be making further comment because "we are focused on the much more important task of keeping Kiwis safe and calm in our stores right now".

In a post to Instagram, Fuimaono said that it was her decision to end the partnership, saying "it had become increasingly apparent to me some time before that that I did not have freedom of speech while I was under contract".

After the furore erupted yesterday, Fuimaono returned to Instagram to defend her comments.

"Sharing my concerns about the current lockdown are my opinions as this is my platform I choose to exercise my right to freedom of speech," Fuimaono wrote.

"I stand by my comments as I am gravely concerned that the rights and freedom of all people in this country are being misconstrued.

"I am not a medical professional and have never claimed to be one, nor have I given medical advice.

"I did not state that masks do not work, I stated that they will not work if they are used incorrectly. There are no laws stating that it is mandatory for me to wear a mask."

Researcher and public communicator Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw told the Herald the nature of social media led to the sharing of conspiracy theory and misinformation, with posts calling it out and criticising it inadvertently leading to it spreading.

"The number of people who believe these things is actually quite small, but it becomes bigger because of the shareability factor," Berentson-Shaw said.

She added that communities could "inoculate" themselves against misinformation by making sure that narratives spread online that contain accurate information.

She highlighted Opposition leader Judith Collins' mask-wearing as social proof that someone in the "questioning space" could still follow public health advice and wear a mask.

Berentson-Shaw warned that misinformation will spike again as New Zealand tackles a fresh outbreak of community transmission, but stressed that the number of people who subscribe to the conspiracy theories is small.

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Covid 19 coronavirus: Influencer Zoe Fuimaono slammed for rant against 'draconian laws'

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Experts have warned of the risks posed to New Zealand's Covid-19 response by online misinformation as a Kiwi influencer defends sharing conspiracy theories online. Zoe Fuimaono, who once partnered with some of New Zealand's leading brands, is defending her right to share her beliefs online after posting misinformation criticising the Government's pandemic response.

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Can you spot the problem with these headlines? (Level 1) - Jeff Leek & Lucy McGowan

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Start Listening around 3.30 in

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How news outlets inadvertently published propaganda from a network of fake journalists.

The Daily Beast has published an investigation into a network of fake journalists that placed opinion pieces in dozens of real news outlets. All the articles were sympathetic to the foreign policy objectives of the United Arab Emirates and the "journalists" who wrote them were backed up by fictitious online personas. Amol Rajan is joined by Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, and Marianna Spring, BBC reporter covering disinformation and social media.

Also in the programme, restarting TV production in a global pandemic, with Danielle Lux, CPL managing director, David Mortimer, STV Productions managing director, and Emeka Onono, director and executive producer of Trump in Tweets.

Sound engineer: Tim Heffer
Producer: Richard Hooper

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BBC Radio 4 - The Media Show, Fake news? Meet the fake journalists

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How news outlets inadvertently published propaganda from a network of fake journalists. The Daily Beast has published an investigation into a network of fake journalists that placed opinion pieces in dozens of real news outlets. All the articles were sympathetic to the foreign policy objectives of the United Arab Emirates and the "journalists" who wrote them were backed up by fictitious online personas.

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If you watch television, you may have come across an advertisement for Spark which shows Lord Ernest Rutherford sitting in an armchair, pontificating over the remarkable rate of human technological progress.

It is promoting the telco's new 5G tech standard for cellular networks, and was created, with the endorsement of Rutherford's estate, through manipulating archival footage and audio of Lord Rutherford recorded while he was alive.

This video is an example of a deepfake. A relatively innocuous one, all things considered - but what happens when this sort of technological power can be wielded by those with more sinister intentions?

In today's episode of The Detail, Emile Donovan speaks to researchers Tom Barraclough and Curtis Barnes, and media commentator Gavin Ellis, about a new reality in which you can't necessarily believe your eyes.

Deepfakes are difficult to define.

They're a branch of synthetic media - meaning media which is created by computers, but using real people, footage, or sounds, as a template.

Imagine you photographed every single adult in New Zealand from three different angles, and fed all those images into a computer which then analysed everything about them: the shape of the faces, the placement of the lips, every follicle on your head or cheek or upper lip.

After it had processed those 10 million or so images, the computer has a pretty good idea of what a human looks like: and so, using those templates, it could - if commanded to - create its own photo of a human, which looks completely realistic but doesn't exist.

This is how deepfakes are made and they're not just limited to photos. Following the same logic you can create videos, or audio as well.

When a lot of video or audio footage of a person exists, as is the case with politicians or famous actors, computers can process so much information they can actually create extremely convincing fakes of real people.

This is how Carrie Fisher appeared in the latest Star Wars movie, and how a video popped up in 2019 of Boris Johnson urging people to vote for his opponent, Jeremy Corbyn, in the 2019 British election.

Former NZ Herald editor Gavin Ellis says this technology has the potential to erode public trust in media, and undermine democracy.

"What I am worried about is the proliferation of deliberate disinformation via these vehicles, that have such a sense of authenticity about them that it's easy to be deceived."

Once upon a time, deepfakes could only be produced with high-end technology - think digital effects companies, like Weta Digital.

But the technology is developing at such a pace that now anyone with above-average tech skills and a high-end machine can create convincing deepfakes - and those people are using that power.

In May of last year, the US Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the victim of deepfaked audio, which slowed down a speech she had given, before adjusting the pitch - giving the impression Pelosi was slurring her words, or drunk.

This technology does have positive uses: it can be used to help synthesise the voices of people who have lost their voices, to create fashion designs or melodies, or to design virtual models for companies who mightn't have the means to hire real people for advertising campaigns.

But they have a dark side too, particularly in the realms of pornography: with enough know-how, it's entirely feasible to create a pornographic image which combines an actual photo with the face of someone else - which has dark implications.

Tom Barraclough from research company Brainbox Ltd says while the technology's benefits probably outweigh its drawbacks, society needs to have a discussion about how best to mitigate its potential for villainy.

"There is a lot of room to be quite alarmed about using synthetic media technology to produce deceptive material that suggests a politician has said or done something that could be really harmful. And I think we can't downplay that.

"[But] the New Zealand law is pretty up to scratch."

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Computer technology that threatens democracy

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If you watch television, you may have come across an advertisement for Spark which shows Lord Ernest Rutherford sitting in an armchair, pontificating over the remarkable rate of human technological progress. It is promoting the telco's new 5G tech standard for cellular networks, and was created, with the endorsement of Rutherford's estate, through manipulating archival footage and audio of Lord Rutherford recorded while he was alive.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXVVdIzGnQE

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Where fake news is used to silence dissent - BBC News

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Our 'Post Truth' World - Devolution of Institutional Trust and Credibility -  Podcast -The Guardian

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Our 'Post Truth' World - Devolution of Institutional Trust and Credibility -  Podcast -The Guardian

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https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2019/oct/07/why-cant-we-agree-on-whats-true-any-more-podcast

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* Read the text version here

The Guardian is editorially independent. And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all. But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work.

Support The Guardian

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Why can't we agree on what's true any more? - podcast

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Read the text version here The Guardian is editorially independent. And we want to keep our journalism open and accessible to all. But we increasingly need our readers to fund our work. Support The Guardian

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http://sagepub.uberflip.com/i/935361-how-to-spot-fake-news/0?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E91bGT9BjYk

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How to spot a misleading graph - Lea Gaslowitz

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Interview - Climate Change Mis-information

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Interview - Climate Change Mis-information

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https://theconversation.com/a-brief-history-of-fossil-fuelled-climate-denial-61273

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The fossil fuel industry has spent many millions of dollars on confusing the public about climate change. But the role of vested interests in climate science denial is only half the picture.

Interest in this topic has spiked with the latest revelation regarding coalmining company Peabody Energy. After Peabody filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, documentation became available revealing the scope of Peabody's funding to third parties. The list of funding recipients includes trade associations, lobby groups and climate-contrarian scientists.

This latest revelation is significant because in recent years, fossil fuel companies have become more careful to cover their tracks. An analysis by Robert Brulle found that from 2003 to 2010, organisations promoting climate misinformation received more than US$900 million of corporate funding per year.

However, Brulle found that from 2008, open funding dropped while funding through untraceable donor networks such as Donors Trust (otherwise known as the "dark money ATM") increased. This allowed corporations to fund climate science denial while hiding their support.

The decrease in open funding of climate misinformation coincided with efforts to draw public attention to the corporate funding of climate science denial. A prominent example is Bob Ward, formerly of the UK Royal Society, who in 2006 challenged Exxon-Mobil to stop funding denialist organisations.

The veils of secrecy have been temporarily lifted by the Peabody bankruptcy proceedings, revealing the extent of the company's third-party payments, some of which went to fund climate misinformation. However, this is not the first revelation of fossil fuel funding of climate misinformation - nor is it the first case involving Peabody.

In 2015, Ben Stewart of Greenpeace posed as a consultant to fossil fuel companies and approached prominent climate denialists, offering to pay for reports promoting the benefits of fossil fuels. The denialists readily agreed to write fossil-fuel-friendly reports while hiding the funding source. One disclosed that he had been paid by Peabody to write contrarian research. He had also appeared as an expert witness and written newspaper op-eds.

The bigger picture of fossil-fuelled denial

Peabody's funding of climate change information and misinformation is one episode in a much larger history of fossil-fuel-funded misinformation. An analysis of more than 40,000 texts by contrarian sources found that organisations who received corporate funding published more climate misinformation, a trend that increased over time.

The following figure shows the use of the claim that "CO₂ is good" (a favourite argument of Peabody Energy) has increased dramatically among corporate-funded sources compared with unfunded ones.

Farrell (2015)

In 1991, Western Fuels Association combined with other groups representing fossil fuel interests to produce a series of misinformation campaigns. This included a video promoting the positive benefits of carbon dioxide, with hundreds of free copies sent to journalists and university libraries. The goal of the campaign was to "reposition global warming as theory (not fact)", attempting to portray the impression of an active scientific debate about human-caused global warming.

ExxonSecrets.org has been tracking fossil-fuel-funded misinformation campaigns for more than two decades - documenting more than A$30 million of funding from Exxon alone to denialist think tanks from 1998 to 2014.

Exxon's funding of climate science denial over this period is particularly egregious considering that it knew full well the risks from human-caused climate change. David Sassoon, founder of Pulitzer Prize-winning news organisation Inside Climate News led an investigation into Exxon's internal research, discovering that its own scientists had warned the company of the harmful impacts of fossil fuel burning as long ago as the 1970s.

Even Inside Climate News's revelation of industry's knowledge of the harmful effects of climate change before engaging in misinformation campaigns has precedence. In 2009, an internal report for the Global Climate Coalition, a group representing fossil fuel industry interests, was leaked to the press.

It showed that the coalition's own scientific experts had advised it in 1995 that "[t]he scientific basis for the Greenhouse Effect and the potential impact of human emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO₂ on climate is well established and cannot be denied". Nevertheless, the organisation proceeded to deny climate science and promote the benefits of fossil fuel emissions.

Ideology: the other half of an "unholy alliance"

However, to focus solely on industry's role in climate science denial misses half the picture. The other significant player is political ideology. At an individual level, numerous surveys (such as here, here and and here) have found that political ideology is the biggest predictor of climate science denial.

People who fear the solutions to climate change, such as increased regulation of industry, are more likely to deny that there is a problem in the first place - what psychologists call " motivated disbelief ".

Consequently, groups promoting political ideology that opposes market regulation have been prolific sources of misinformation about climate change. This productivity has been enabled by the many millions of dollars flowing from the fossil fuel industry. Naomi Oreskes, co-author of Merchants of Doubt, refers to this partnership between vested interests and ideological groups as an "unholy alliance".

Reducing the influence

To reduce the influence of climate science denial, we need to understand it. This requires awareness of both the role of political ideology and the support that ideological groups have received from vested interests.

Without this understanding, it's possible to make potentially inaccurate accusations such as climate denial being purely motivated by money, or that it is intentionally deceptive. Psychological research tells us that ideologically driven confirmation bias (misinformation) is almost indistinguishable from intentional deception (disinformation).

The fossil fuel industry has played a hugely damaging role in promoting misinformation about climate change. But without the broader picture including the role of political ideology, one can build an incomplete picture of climate science denial, leading to potentially counterproductive responses.

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A brief history of fossil-fuelled climate denial

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The fossil fuel industry has spent many millions of dollars on confusing the public about climate change. But the role of vested interests in climate science denial is only half the picture. Interest in this topic has spiked with the latest revelation regarding coalmining company Peabody Energy.

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Trump Calls Official Reporter 'Fake News'

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Trump Calls Official Reporter 'Fake News'

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=Vqpzk-qGxMU&feature=emb_logo

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Donald Trump shuts down CNN reporter: "You're fake news"

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At least 19 fake personas, acting as Middle East experts, wrote 90 opinion pieces for dozens of mostly US right-wing news outlets, an investigation by a US news website has revealed.

The opinion pieces had a common theme of heaping praise on the United Arab Emirates and advocating for a tougher stance on Qatar, Turkey, Iran and its proxy groups in Iraq and Lebanon, according to The Daily Beast which carried out the investigation.

The articles were published in US conservative outlets such as the Washington Examiner, RealClear Markets, American Thinker and The National Interest.

The Middle East-based websites that also published these pieces include Al Arabiya, The Arab News, and The Jerusalem Post.

Following The Daily Beast's publication of its findings, Twitter suspended 16 accounts involved in spreading the propaganda.

"Using technology, human review and partnerships with researchers and other independent organizations studying these issues, we work to identify platform manipulation on our service and take action," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement.

"As is standard, if we have reasonable evidence to attribute any activity to a state-backed information operation, we'll disclose them - following thorough investigation - to our public archive."

For my Middle East followers, some of the outlets to have published opeds by fake journalists include @AlArabiya_Eng @arabnews and @JPostOpinion I don't expect the Arab News and Al Arabiyya ones be taken down... pic.twitter.com/dU74iihPGG
- Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) July 7, 2020

According to The Daily Beast, the personas in the network used a mixture of stolen or AI-generated avatars and fake biographies to make them seem credible.

"The backstories used to buttress the network's credibility are similarly phony," The Daily Beast wrote.

"Some authors pretended to be journalists, either freelance or former full".

One claimed to be a former reporter for The Associated Press based in London, "though no public record of an AP journalist matching Salma Mohamed's description is available".

Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor at Qatar's Hamad bin Khalifa University, said more "due diligence" should have been done by the editors of the outlets that had published these personas.

"The big problem here is an issue of vetting," Jones told Al Jazeera. "These outlets that have published these works - which includes prominent outlets like The Washington Examiner - are not doing sufficient checks on their contributors.

"I sympathise with the editors because they are under a lot of pressure, but really, in the age of fake news, I think more scrutiny has to be done on people submitting opinion pieces," he added.

Jones said the investigation is only the "tip of the iceberg" and that the network of fake personas masquerading as experts on the Middle East is part of a "large-scale operation".

"The thrust of the articles seem to concern Iranian and Turkish expansionism and the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the world, which would suggest to me that it puts in line with certain right-wing US think-tanks or the foreign policies of the UAE or Saudi Arabia," he continued.

"If we look at all the discourse of the articles, there is a common theme running through them that would suggest it was carried out on behalf of a state by a particular entity."

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Fake MENA experts published on US right-wing sites, probe reveals

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At least 19 fake personas, acting as Middle East experts, wrote 90 opinion pieces for dozens of mostly US right-wing news outlets, an investigation by a US news website has revealed.

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Circular Reporting - Exponential with Web 2.0

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Circular Reporting - Exponential with Web 2.0

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSKGa_7XJkg

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NZ Example - Deep Fake and Personal Digital Security

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NZ Example - Deep Fake and Personal Digital Security

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https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/nzs-first-case-deepfake-🤬-triggering-alarm-bells-officials

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New Zealand has had its first domestic report of deepfaked pornography and it's sending alarm bells to officials.

Netsafe has confirmed it received four reports of deepfakes in the past year alone.

The country's first report of deepfaked pornography saw the identity of a New Zealander being used.

"People are not even creating content and they're turning up in pornographic content, and other people are seeing it and assuming it's real - it's a pretty serious consequence of this technology," Netsafe CEO Martin Cocker said.

"We're going to see Deepfake technology more and more in scams than we are now."

Brainbox research co-director Curtis Barnes says the detection technology "isn't able to deal with this at this point".

"These sort of things are going to take some time for cyber professionals and organisations to become aware of," he said.

Deepfakes aren't just being used for videos either.

"I need your immediate assistance to finalise an urgent business deal," the deepfake voicemail said.

While there are no reports of this type of scam being run in New Zealand, Mr Barnes says it's only a matter of time.

"It creates an opportunity for people to use basically a new set of skills to do an old task which is convince someone that something they seen or heard is real when it isn't," Mr Barnes said.

It is a concern for the Chief Censor.

"We have seen research emerge recently indicating that the number of deepfake videos has nearly doubled in a year it's certainly something that we need to take seriously and take steps to address," Chief Censor David Shanks said.

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NZ's first case of deepfake pornography triggering alarm bells for officials

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New Zealand has had its first domestic report of deepfaked pornography and it's sending alarm bells to officials. Netsafe has confirmed it received four reports of deepfakes in the past year alone. The country's first report of deepfaked pornography saw the identity of a New Zealander being used.

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RNZ - Conspiracy Theory and Threat to Democracy - Podcast

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RNZ - Conspiracy Theory and Threat to Democracy - Podcast

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https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018757523/should-we-be-worried-about-the-rise-of-qanon

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QAnon, an intricate conspiracy theory which suggests US President Donald Trump is secretly waging war on a well-connected satanic paedophile ring, should not be dismissed as a harmless oddity, according to an article by Adrienne LaFrance, executive editor of The Atlantic.

Conspiracy theories are growing in support and visibility on social media, and in political life, and she thinks the rise in "a mass rejection of reason" signals a dangerous new phase for society.

At least one of QAnon's followers could be elected to Congress after the November elections and the group has been linked to the spread of Covid-19 conspiracy theories.

See terms of use.

Recent stories from Saturday Morning

Podcast (MP3) Oggcast (Vorbis)

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Should we be worried about the rise of QAnon?

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QAnon, an intricate conspiracy theory which suggests US President Donald Trump is secretly waging war on a well-connected Satanic paedophile ring, should not be dismissed as a harmless oddity according to Adrienne LaFrance, Executive editor of "The Atlantic".

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https://youtu.be/AkwWcHekMdo

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RNZ Podcast - Local Covid-19 Conspiracy Mis-information and Politics

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RNZ Podcast - Local Covid-19 Conspiracy Mis-information and Politics

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The announcement that Auckland was going into lockdown for a second time was met with a deluge of conspiracy theories and misinformation, including from several prominent political figures. That "infodemic" is forcing journalists to confront the question of how they should report on the rapid rise of social media-fueled conspiracy movements.

In the hours after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced Auckland would be moving back into lockdown, Billy Te Kahika Jr did something he'd done many times before, and switched on Facebook Live.

The New Zealand Public Party leader launched into a familiar refrain.

"We have been saying for over a month now this lockdown was coming. We did say it would be the second week of August," he said.

Te Kahika's insinuation that this week's lockdown was planned in advance was false.

Ardern and director general of health Ashley Bloomfield have both said they found out about the new Covid-19 outbreak roughly five hours before the lockdown announcement.

There's no evidence they're lying, and plenty they're telling the truth.

In the past, theories like Te Kahika's might have been more easily sidelined. But the blues musician from Whāngarei has built up a substantial following on social media since he started posting screeds of misinformation and conspiracy theories during the last lockdown in March.

Thanks to what he calls his research, his Facebook audience has grown from a few hundred to more than 20,000. His New Zealand Public Party meetings have been met with packed halls.

On Tuesday, Te Kahika's theory spread rapidly online.

It was echoed by celebrities, including the Australian chef Pete Evans, who said the lockdown was a "scam", in a post that linked back to the New Zealand Public Party.

Popular Instagram influencer Zoe Fuimaono, who goes by the handle @blessedindoubles, implied the new health measures were helping usher in military rule.

Even National Party deputy leader Gerry Brownlee was accused of engaging in conspiratorial thinking, after hinting that the government had known more about the resurgence of Covid-19 than it was letting on in a press conference on Wednesday.

These sorts of ideas became so prevalent that Ardern had to address them multiple times at press conferences on Wednesday.

"I've heard suggestion that we may have had this information earlier than we had said. There is no reason why we would ever do that," she said on Wednesday morning. "I do worry that those kinds of theories do nothing to support what needs to be collective action from all of us."

That afternoon, Ardern characterised Brownlee's implied allegations as "nonsense".

The media was also quick to cast a skeptical eye over the outbreak of conspiratorial thinking, with RNZ's Kim Hill repeatedly bringing up Brownlee's claims during a withering interview with National Party leader Judith Collins on Thursday's Morning Repor t.

A group of 50 health experts signed an open letter urging politicians to stop undermining public health messages on Covid-19.

But even if it was strongly condemned by the government, medical professionals and the media, the boil-up of misinformation highlights a problem facing authorities as they try to stamp out Covid-19 for a second time.

They're now essentially dealing with two parallel crises: the virus and the maelstrom of misinformation surrounding it, which the WHO has termed an " infodemic ".

Recent news reports have hinted at the sheer scale of ill-informed, and often conspiratorial belief driving that infodemic.

An internal Facebook report leaked to NBC showed the social media platform hosts thousands of pages linked to the conspiracy theory QAnon, with millions of followers between them.

Even a recently-elected Republican member of the US House of Representatives is associated with QAnon.

Widespread conspiratorial thinking has fed into that country's disastrous Covid response, helping to undermine public health messages.

In an article on Thursday, Newsroom's Sam Sachdeva argued comments like Brownlee's risk moving New Zealand in the same direction.

"Making ominous references to 'interesting facts'... runs the risk of undermining public buy-in for a longer lockdown, should one be required," he wrote.

"As the US has torn itself apart over a politicised Covid response as deaths shoot upwards, we have patted ourselves on the back.

"Such complacency on the health front has proved to be a mirage - we can only hope the quality of our political discourse does not similarly evaporate."

Brownlee has since backtracked on his comments, saying it wasn't his intention to play into the hands of conspiracy theorists.

Even if Brownlee didn't mean to aid those groups, modelling from Te Pūnaha Matatini shows the latest lockdown has been met with a spike in online disinformation.

The question of how to cover conspiracies

Despite the increasing real-world harm caused by conspiracy theories, many media outlets devote few resources to covering online misinformation, and those that do are often guilty of delivering uncritical coverage.

Nelson's Mainland TV has been criticised for airing the discredited documentary Plandemic in full, despite it containing an abundance of falsehoods and misinformation about Covid-19.

A Gisborne Herald report on one of Te Kahika's meetings from July 8 was simply headlined ' Global plandemic '. It lead with the startling header:

"Labour "communists" Jacinda Ardern and Ashley Bloomfield are complicit in a global agenda of state control that involves construction of the coronavirus "plandemic".

"New Zealand Public Party founder and lay minister Billy Te Kahika made that claim to a packed room at Waikanae Surf Life Saving Club on Saturday night."

The Raglan Chronicle struck a similar tone in its coverage of one of those meetings, spelling out many of his more outlandish beliefs without surrounding context, under the headline ' Post-lockdown Billy Te Kahika event attracts many '.

Stuff's Charlie Mitchell, who recently wrote a lengthy feature on Te Kahika's rise, said he had to wrestle with some ethical questions before embarking on the story.

He had to weigh two competing ideals: his desire to not give a platform to information that's false or misleading, and his imperative to cover matters of public interest in a way that's fair, and gives people a right of reply.

"In this case those two ideas are in conflict with each other. You can't really have both. To accurately characterise what Billy Te Kahika believes, you have to by definition have to repeat information that is false or at best unsubstantiated."

Mitchell decided not to take an adversarial approach with his feature, opting instead to put Te Kahika's beliefs in proper context.

"We didn't go in all guns blazing, prosecuting a case against conspiracy theories or Te Kahika specifically. We just wanted to recognise that these conspiracy theories exist and if you want to understand why you have to listen to these people and talk to them in a way that isn't judgemental, which is a very fine line to walk."

Documentary maker and journalist David Farrier advocates a similar approach to dealing with conspiracy theorists.

"I think being kind and open to these people is important and also just showing there are shades of grey. You can talk to your friend that's into that stuff say 'yeah I don't always trust institutions and the government either, I don't always think they have my best interests at heart, but where I start to become a bit skeptical is that I'm pretty confident that 5G towers aren't being installed to spread Covid-19'," he said. "Chip away, slowly."

Farrier keeps tabs on the rise of movements like QAnon in New Zealand through his blog Webworm. He regularly features interviews with conspiracy theory experts on how to debunk misinformation, and deter people from falling into online rabbit holes in the first place.

But that's not enough, he said. He wanted more media attention to be devoted to conspiracy movements, as they make a social media-enabled move from the fringes into the mainstream.

"I would love to see this stuff we're talking about going out to a much wider audience," he said. "I think we need to be talking about this stuff on a much grander scale, and contextualising it, because you can't just report that 'hey a bunch of people out there believe that 5G is giving us cancer or it's actually going to give us Covid-19'. We have to explain why this stuff's happening, why we're hearing all this dialogue. We have to critically pull it apart so hopefully we can stop it from spreading further."

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Covid-19: Confronting the deluge of conspiracies over the latest lockdown

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The announcement that Auckland was going into lockdown for a second time was met with a deluge of conspiracy theories and misinformation, including from several prominent political figures. That "infodemic" is forcing journalists to confront the question of how they should report on the rapid rise of social media-fueled conspiracy movements.

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Evolving Definitions of Fake News - 'Post Truth Society' Podcast

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Evolving Definitions of Fake News - 'Post Truth Society' Podcast

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https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3csvtp8

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BBC World Service - Trending, The History of 'Fake News' (Part 1)

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The meaning of "fake news" has been completely transformed - so what does it mean now?

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Truth and Democracy - Interview Editor Washington Post 

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Truth and Democracy - Interview Editor Washington Post 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36OeCGkQD0c

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International Economic Forum of the Americas

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Truth and trust in the Information Era | Toronto Global Forum 2019 | Friday, September 6

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Historical Tobacco and Gun Lobby Mis-information - A Subversion of Trust

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Historical Tobacco and Gun Lobby Mis-information - A Subversion of Trust

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https://theconversation.com/how-big-tobacco-gifted-campaigns-of-misdirection-and-misinformation-to-the-gun-lobby-45108

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In the late 1970s, the US tobacco industry was faced with a problem: it was no longer able to convincingly propagate the idea that cigarettes were good for you. It rightly supposed that this might lead to calls for anti-smoking legislation and, in anticipation, created an explicit doctrine: where a debate is unwinnable, change it.

The tobacco industry also recognised that if legislation led to even a 1% drop in annual revenues - self-calculated to be worth US$35 million in 1979 - then a "public information" campaign worth an unprecedented US$18 million was warranted if it might convince Congress not to legislate.

Such economics gave rise to a new wave of lobbying efforts. Corporations realised that traditional lobbying - useful as it was - was ineffective when governments proved stubborn, or even contrarian. The new lobbying no longer just targeted government, but was expanded to include the voting public.

Other industries took notice of tobacco's efforts. These tactics still exist in lobbying today.

What the tobacco industry did

Tobacco industry groups began a series of "public information" campaigns. These took the form of paid "expert" testimony and opinion, sponsorship of "think-tanks", the paradoxical "corporate social responsibility" (one of Milton Friedman's greatest bugbears), and a little-understood phenomenon called "advocacy advertising".

What made the late 1970s and 1980s different to previous decades was the shift in tone. Businesses once engaged in such campaigns in surprising ways - we would even consider them naïve today. Companies such as AT&T, Mobil Oil and General Motors ran earnest, overly long, paid op-eds in newspapers around the US that explained who they were, what was at issue (fairly accurately) and what their position was. To the general public, they were unreadable.

The tobacco industry - more than any other - changed this dramatically. It decided that it was far better to use advertising to sell, rather than convey, its message.

The tobacco industry's campaigns were surprisingly successful. Despite a torrent of complaints about the dangers of smoking from the medical community, the public lobbying had shifted the grounds of the debate where typical, business-to-government lobbying could not.

No longer a health issue, smoking had become an individual rights one. The quickly building consensus against cigarette use was frustrated. It took a tremendous effort by anti-smoking groups to bring about gradual change, and even when the landmark Master Settlement Agreement of 1998 was signed, many critics saw the legislation as favouring the industry, and protecting it from future liability

Shifting focus on gun control

In the 1970s, the National Rifle Association (NRA) also shifted its strategic focus. Advertisements became decidedly more political.

In part, this shift was due to the increased influence of the gun industry, as distinct from individual members of the public. The industry had begun to significantly contribute to the NRA and exercised disproportionate say in who filled key leadership positions.

The rhetoric of the NRA's ads changed. It had always been a "sportsman's organisation", but was once devoted more to information and training. Its tone changed in 1970, slightly at first, telling readers that hunters' rights were under threat by:

... possibly well-intentioned, but ill-informed forces.

By the 1980s, having seen the success of campaigns that sought to distort rather than engage debates, the NRA further hardened its position. It decided that any attempt to limit gun rights was unacceptable. It has never again afforded gun-control advocates the dignity of being referred to as "well intentioned". Post-1980 advertisements would portray such advocates as unpatriotic cowards who, if they succeeded in de-arming America, would lead to its demise.

Enter into the mix the NRA's latest attempt to control the debate. In the wake of the Charleston church shootings, NRA magazine America's 1st Freedom featured a story, Australia: There Will Be Blood.

The article rails against Australia's gun laws, the most prominent of which were introduced following the 1996 Port Arthur massacre. Such articles play an important role in the wider misinformation campaign against gun control. In this case, it forms the basis for claims - often made in NRA ads - that stringent gun laws lead to a worsening of crime.

Referring to US President Barack Obama's recent comments on Australia's laws, the NRA magazine concludes:

[Australia's] is the gun-control regime that our president applauds for its decisive resolve. It robbed Australians of their right to self-defence and empowered criminals, all without delivering the promised reduction in violent crime. Australia's gun confiscation is indeed a lesson to America: it is a sign of what is to come if we hold our rights lightly.

There's a lot to disagree with in this quote (and the article). But the article's importance is in what it does not engage with - why Australia actually introduced the laws.

Muddying the waters

It is clear, in viewing the NRA's public information strategy, that fear is a key tool. The other tool - one even more powerful - is misdirection. The lessons from big tobacco have been well heeded: alter the nature of the debate until it is winnable, or at least not loseable. In some instances stalemate will do. If new information arises that shows an existing position to be wrong, move on to another.

Similar "grassroots" organisations also use this tool for other issues like climate change. But the NRA does it particularly well, much to Obama's obvious frustration.

The NRA refuses to substantively engage with Australia having changed its laws in response to a massacre. The laws were designed to ensure that angry, disillusioned or depressed people could not easily access a gun and kill, en masse, innocents.

The NRA lobbies in the hope that we forget that mass shootings are the work of disturbed individuals. They take place in schools and colleges, cinemas, tourist attractions, churches and workplaces. They can even take place in secure navy and army bases, illustrating the hollowness of the NRA adage that:

The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.

The victims, lest we forget them, include an unbearable number of children, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers and friends.

While there continues to be an endless bombardment of advertisements extolling how virtuous guns are, the absence of an equally well-resourced organisation in opposition to the NRA ensures that the message of victims dies at the end of a press cycle.

Who can name a single child from Sandy Hook Elementary? Who can recall their faces? Who knows what they'd say? They get lost, forgotten even, in a debate where money buys the carry of your voice.

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How big tobacco gifted campaigns of misdirection and misinformation to the gun lobby

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In the late 1970s, the US tobacco industry was faced with a problem: it was no longer able to convincingly propagate the idea that cigarettes were good for you. It rightly supposed that this might lead to calls for anti-smoking legislation and, in anticipation, created an explicit doctrine: where a debate is unwinnable, change it.

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https://libguides.ncl.ac.uk/fakenews/history

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LibGuides: Fake News: History of Fake News

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Everything you have ever wanted to know about Fake News, how to spot it and how to avoid it.

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A spike in anti-Covid-19 conspiracy theories over the past week could undermine efforts to stamp out the virus, health experts say.

Researchers at Te Pūnaha Matatini, Auckland University's centre for research excellence, are studying disinformation about Covid-19 on social media this month.

Research findings to date show the country's leading conspiracy theory proponent is Billy Te Kahika - who is standing for the New Zealand Public Party in the Te Tai Tokerau seat.

READ MORE:
* Coronavirus: US death toll passes 150,000 amid burgeoning outbreak of misinformation
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* Why coronavirus has infected conspiracy theorists so badly

A prolific Facebook poster, his party page had 20,000 followers within two months.

In a video posted on Wednesday Te Kahika told followers he had been forewarned about the level 2 and 3 alert announced by the Prime Minister by "patriotic Kiwis that work in Government agencies".

There is evidence to contradict his claims which include that Covid is no more harmful than the common cold, that the swab test being used could not distinguish between types of viruses, and that the military would be going door-to-door to test people for Covid-19.

The study, which is being funded by the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment, would provide findings to the Government for use by policy makers, research lead and Auckland University physics department research fellow Kate Hannah said.

"We are concerned about what we have found so far in that there definitely has been a spike in neutral and positive framing of these ideas as promoted by Billy Te Kahika and Pete Evans."

Evans is a celebrity-chef who has become a controversial anti-vaxxer and conspiracy theorist.

The monitoring done by the researchers found support for resisting the use of masks, resisting Covid testing, and not being vaccinated against the virus when a vaccine becomes available.

An anti-mask video by UK conspiracy theorist David Icke had been translated into multiple languages including te reo Māori and Pacific languages and shared widely.

Auckland University associate professor Siouxsie Wiles warned the Government and all politicians against ignoring the dangerous potential of conspiracy theories.

"It's feeding into people's fear and my concern is that people will then behave in a way that will help the virus to spread rather than help us to stamp it out."

Wiles said it was hard to quantify the impact of conspiracy theories on the Covid-19 response but there was no doubt they increased the risk.

"All it would need is a case within a community that has really bought into these theories for a massive cluster to happen."

If people with symptoms refused to get tested for Covid-19 cases could be missed, and opportunities to contain further spread would be foiled, she said.

Researcher and author Jess Berentson-Shaw said addressing the spread of disinformation about the pandemic needed to be part of the Government's pandemic response plan.

This meant understanding the motivations of supporters and getting ahead of conspiracy theories "very early on".

Building relationships with people who lacked trust in the government for valid reasons, and were therefore more likely to believe them, would be vital, Berentson-Shaw said.

Although it appeared the Government response had been slow to date, it was not too late, she said.

"I think it is critical to put resources in to addressing misinformation so that when we do get a vaccine we are all set and ready to go and people are well inoculated against any misinformation that is likely to flare up," Berentson-Shaw said.

For individuals concerned about the beliefs of friends and whānau, Berentson-Shaw said not to re-tweet their material even to debunk it.

Arguing with people who were very entrenched in their beliefs was unlikely to have any effect and could be very draining.

Politicians could politicise conspiracy theories by alluding to them in comments but the practice was "a particularly dangerous phenonemon" Berentson-Shaw said.

By using the theories in this way, politicians effectively moved dangerous ideas into the mainstream and legitimised them, she said.

In a statement put out on Thursday, the New Zealand Defence Force said there had been "inaccurate posts circulating on social media about our future support" of the Government's Covid response.

The armed forces were only helping at the managed isolation and quarantine facilities, and at vehicle checkpoints around Auckland, the statement said.

"Our involvement in such activities is far from unusual, and is routinely trained for," it said.

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Coronavirus: 'Dangerous' Covid-19 conspiracy theories on the rise

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A spike in anti-Covid-19 conspiracy theories over the past week could undermine efforts to stamp out the virus, health experts say. Researchers at Te Pūnaha Matatini, Auckland University's centre for research excellence, are studying disinformation about Covid-19 on social media this month.